Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked an audience of Iowa Democratic activists in Des Moines Saturday night to back President Obama’s mission to help the middle class, as they did four years ago.

Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, headlined the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Des Moines, recalling repeatedly that then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama made his key campaign promises at the same dinner four years ago. He kept those promises, Emanuel said.

The speech was seen as a turning point for Obama, who went on to win the 2008 Iowa caucuses.

When he wasn’t ticking through Obama’s achievements on health care, fighting terrorism and restoring the economy in ways that help the middle class, Emanuel was blasting GOP candidate Mitt Romney for appealing to the privileged.

Emanuel had little to say about other GOP candidates. But he poked fun at the changing leader board among the GOP field, adding, “I’m beginning to miss the wisdom of Sarah Palin.”

He blasted Republican President George W. Bush for “squandering” the surplus President Bill Clinton built with Emanuel on Clinton’s staff. “It’s ironic because the one thing the Republicans are good at is inheriting things.”

He jabbed Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” photo op in another part of his speech, noting that after Obama approved the mission that took out terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, “President Obama didn’t brag. He thanked our troops. He thanked our intelligence agencies for their work. He didn’t hang a banner. He went on to the next terrorist.”

The man known as “Rahmbo” for his fierce politics took direct aim at GOP candidate Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, for a good share of the night.

The mayor said Romney rescinded his support of gay rights, abortion rights and gun control.

“Mitt Romey says he is a man of strength and consistency,” Emanuel said. “If that’s true, I’m a linebacker for the Chicago Bears.”

Emanuel contended that Obama has achieved many of his goals, including an overhaul of health care. “Politicians have been talking about this for 60 years,” Emanuel said. “President Obama delivered.”

He also praised the president for expanding scholarship opportunities and improving community college access while cutting the cost of college loans.

He noted that an Ohio Chrysler plant added 1,100 jobs, and Chicago’s south-side Ford factory gained 1,200. Romney once said the automakers should be allowed to go bankrupt, Emanuel said.

“You know the president will continue to fight for middle-class values,” he said.

About 1,000 people attended the dinner at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines.

He says economy is coming back

In an interview with The Des Moines Register, Emanuel said voters will consider the president’s work in improving the economy when they pick a candidate.

“People are going to take the measure of his character, his leadership and his values and the judgment he’s provided to deal with probably one of the most difficult times in contemporary American history,” said Emanuel, who left Obama’s administration last year to run for mayor.

“He inherited a country that was losing 700,000 jobs a month, and now they are creating 100,000. That isn’t good enough, but it’s better than what he inherited.”

Obama is pushing a plan to create 2.5 million jobs, partly through building roads, rails and runways. “You cannot have a 21st-century economy running on a 20th-century infrastructure,” Emanuel said. Investments in transportation directly improve the nation’s economic output, he said.

The president’s plan will change that, but the GOP candidates haven’t laid out their plans, Emanuel said. “The Republicans are just running the playbook of the 2000s period that got you the worst recession in America history, a financial system that was frozen up and an auto industry that collapsed and an economy that was spiraling toward a depression,” Emanuel said.

“It’s right to invest in the things that will make the American economy more productive,” he said. “You have to out-innovate, out-invest, out-educate and out-sell the rest of the world.”

Midwest is called key battleground

Emanuel said the Midwest and Southwest remain important presidential battlegrounds. He declined to say which states are most important in this campaign, or specifically how Obama would reach out to them. He said winning the Midwest is an exercise in appealing to the middle class.

“You have to lay out an agenda for the middle class and about the middle class,” Emanuel said, noting that under President George W. Bush some children were worse off financially than their parents’ generation for the first time.

“Health care, jobs, education, college access,” Emanuel said. “All the basics that make up the middle-class life have to be addressed.”

In response to a question, Emanuel chuckled and offered these thoughts on the revolving list of poll-toppers in the GOP race: “We are all beginning to feel a little empathy for the Republican primary voters given the choices they have available, and I never, ever have had any empathy for the Republicans.”

Emanuel is nothing if not passionate.

To say the mayor is not your average politician would not quite colorfully paint the picture. This is a one-time dancer who turned down a scholarship offer at the Joffrey Ballet (he now is honorary chairman of the Joffrey board of directors).

Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman Sue Dvorsky said Saturday’s dinner was a chance to fire up the Democratic troops as the president moves to carry the politically strategic states of Iowa, Ohio and Missouri.

“We celebrate the football teams at Iowa State, Iowa and UNI this weekend, but on Monday we fan out to all 99 counties. Emanuel comes with a high profile, but every member of the party is an emissary for a balanced, sensible, problem-solving approach to these massive issues that face us.”